


if i could find the key

by stolethekey



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: F/M, Post S3 Finale, because i am Distraught, i just have not stopped thinking about it and this just...came out, so spoilers obvi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-26
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-10-16 10:51:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17548283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stolethekey/pseuds/stolethekey
Summary: They have come too far, suffered too much, and Eleanor is going to see this to the end.She owes him that much.





	if i could find the key

**Author's Note:**

> as always, you can find me on tumblr at @stolethekey! time to cry

Eleanor Shellstrop is not an idealistic person.

It was that quality, perhaps, that prevented her from being good on earth—if it was impossible to be truly, truly good, why even try at all? When she was alive, though, it served her well. Her pragmatism kept her out of sticky situations, her constant focus on the least annoying action keeping her steadily afloat above the terrors of the boring, mundane lives of some of her acquaintances. More importantly, it allowed her to distract herself—from the horrors of the world, from the deeper emotions she’d never felt, and from the trauma lying in wait underneath her carefully constructed facade of scathing self-confidence, waiting for a moment to strike.

She realizes, now, that her self-labeled realism made her insanely selfish and probably a nightmare to be around.

There was no epiphany, no aha moment like the one where she realized registering for multiple Google Voice numbers would allow her unlimited free Uber rides. Instead, it’s been a long, arduous process—a journey on the road to discover the inherent good in being good.

 _It’s all fake,_ the old, realist voice says in her head. _If being good really mattered, this wouldn’t be happening to you right now._

And as much as new and improved Eleanor wants to shut that voice up and insist that being good is intrinsically beneficial, a part of her believes it.

Because the man who taught her all that is currently sitting ten yards away from her, outside that wooden door she has apparently seen over 800 times, and he has absolutely no idea who she is.

It is ironic, she thinks, how much her relationship with him is like trying to be a good person. How she is chasing him like he chases the good, an endless pursuit of a seemingly impossible end. She is standing in the pits of Tartarus and the fruit of moral righteousness and the water of the first happy and healthy relationship she has ever had are _right there_ , receding every time she gets close.

The thing is, she knows that the man she fell in love with is gone forever. That he is the closest thing to dead they can achieve here without completely vanishing from the universe, that he is never going to be the same person who occupies the “first and only love” category of her life and afterlife. He is never going to be that version of himself again.

She has known this would happen since he looked at her with that determined expression on his face: _that_ Chidi is gone, gone the moment Michael—with eyes full of anguish—snapped his fingers. And he is never coming back, no matter how much Eleanor wishes he would.

Wishes are dreams, she knows. And dreams are pretend.

And yet she also knows that in every single moment she spends with him, she will be searching for a trace of that Chidi, searching for a remnant of what was. Because some secret hidden part of her is illogically insisting that it is there.

She has no idea what she’s going to do if she finds it.

“Janet,” she says, trying to control the shake in her voice, “Can you, just, like, tell me the answer?”

“I know how you feel,” Janet says, and the pain underlying her words almost makes Eleanor shatter completely.

They have been through _so much_. All of them. And Michael is currently sitting somewhere outside, broken and terribly resigned, watching his once-carefully designed world implode in front of him.

To feel pain is to be human, she’d told him. He becomes more and more human every day.

If she was a little more cynical, she would say that she never left the Bad Place. That this is all a cleverly and elaborately constructed ruse, designed to capitalize on human propensity for growth and the inevitability of human hope, that has sent all of them—including Michael and Janet—through the ringer. It would be the only alternative explanation. Because this pain, the pain that Michael and Janet are feeling, the pain that _she_ is feeling, is everything she was avoiding when she was alive. What Michael did to her in the fake Good Place doesn’t even come close.

But they have come too far, suffered too much, and Eleanor is going to see this to the end. For Tahani, for Jason, for Janet, for Michael. For every person on earth who is trying their best but drowning underneath the weight of things they can’t control, completely unaware of what’s waiting for them on the other side. For him.

She owes him that much.

The door creaks a little when she opens it, the weight of the wood heavy against her hands.

“Hi, Chidi,” she says, hyperaware of the awful finality her words bring. “I’m Eleanor. Come on in.”


End file.
